Post by TactilizingOne on Oct 31, 2022 22:56:08 GMT -5
Watching little Morgan in the greenhouse was a joy you couldn’t replicate in this world. She was steady on her feet these days, getting herself upright so she could make use of her newly discovered tool HANDS! She had two of them, in fact, and in short order she would learn to use them deftly. As a crawler she reached for things but lacked the arm strength to hold her precious, chubby body with just one arm. Instead, she tipped over and, to her credit, would roll onto her back with a coo – the genesis of what would absolutely become the charismatic laugh of a confident woman. She charmed us the very instant we locked eyes.
“It’s a girl,” Cindy cried out, lifting an arm to greet the little miracle that had emerged into the world.
Larry was there to hand their newest little bundle to his wife, gently handing her the freshly cleaned and swaddled little princess. After that, it was never a question they would love her as much as their son, Logan. She was perfect.
“Morgan, look!” with an extending of a fire red leaf that had found a way into the greenhouse. Likely, it was Logan coming in a rush to grab a plant to impress the latest girl he was interested in.
Morgan’s face scrunches together as she looks at the leaf. She was trying to decide if the leaf was dangerous, her instincts aware of not seeing this object more than a time or two before. Simultaneously, she wanted to stay on her feet to walk the few steps from the stroller – where she had decided to park herself and pick at flower petals – over to Cindy, sitting on the fountain’s rim. She was already 15 months old. Astonishing. It was one thing to hear the chatter on the local Facebook mom’s group, and another when someone goes through the process the first time. To be just as surprised with the second child’s progression was not something Cindy Winstead felt would strike her as powerfully as the process with the first. It felt like Morgan was developing at lightning speed.
It probably felt fleeting, Cindy surmised, because this would likely be her last child.
Especially with Larry having decided to return to the ring. It isn’t that she opposed the decision. There was an understanding established between them that, once Logan was acclimated to his life and routines, and “wanting some independence for himself” – their coded language for being stricken by puberty – her husband may take a peek at the still cracked open door to his wrestling career. She thought it was healthy for him to have one more run, and see how far the competition had progressed, and whether he could match that with his own re-emergence.
As it turns out, the competition has made mainstream the brutality of professional wrestling.
Cindy watched Morgan make strides to close the distance, and then swiped a pillowy hand at the leaf. She missed slightly and hit my wrist, then retracted her arm and looked at her hand. Blink. Blink. Then she looked to the only person she knew to ask for guidance. Morgan literally needed herself and Larry to survive. That was it. We were the first and only line of protection for this angelic princess. Cindy would never allow anything to happen to her, regardless of the consequences to herself. That went for any of her family. She would never allow them to come to harm without her fighting to protect them with her all.
She had sworn on it in confession and the tone of her conviction had taken Father Dimitry off guard. He made a whimpering like sound when she reached her crescendo: “Father, before you tell me the number of Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s I’ll owe the man upstairs, I have one more thing to confess. On the Bible, on my bond with Christ Himself, and in front of you… I swear one of my family shall not be seriously harmed or worse, without a lethal fight – over my dead body! I’ll do whatever it takes to bring them home safe.”
Poor Father Dimitry may have needed to check his pulse, or his pacemaker, after that day in particular of receiving confessions. A good man with an open ear for others’ plight, even if his guidance wasn’t exactly Heaven sent or insightful. She always thought he would have made a decent politician.
Suddenly, Morgan stumbled into Cindy’s arms, jostling her from thoughts adrift. The littlest Tact was taking a breather, turning and using Cindy’s knees as resting posts. Cindy could relate, although she wasn’t physically tired. She and the kids had been at her parents’ place for several months, and she was fine with their home in Long Island. After all, as her childhood home, it was comfortable. They made the days breezy with the help they provided, and it was good for Morgan to familiarize herself. Logan got free and fresh flowers to flaunt for the young ladies who caught his hormonally driven attention. He was like 90 percent about girls right now, and there wasn’t a guarantee it had hit peak. Not something Cindy ever wanted to address, so she pushed it as Larry’s problem. He was the father and he would earn that distinction – not through his efforts as a businessman, or a wrestler, but as a father.
Which brings us back to Logan, whom Cindy adamantly believed could do better with showing respect and engaging his grandparents. It had been a battle of its own, getting him to come out here, an entire one hour train ride back to New York City. Even if they understood the stage of life he was being consumed by, and they loved seeing him grow up enough to brush off his lazy manners, that didn’t get him in the clear with Mom. Still, it was a point of pride seeing her ‘once upon a time’ Little Guy barreling towards young adulthood. Legally, anyway, if not with grace and intellect. At this point, Cindy found any shortfalls could conveniently be blamed on her husband, and he had yet to give a credible defense for his teenage years being a divergence from what they were witnessing with Logan. There was just a different soundtrack and life-changing amount of technology thrown in.
Corralling social media was fun for every parent that none expected – or knew the best way of handling now that it was here – invading their lives and destroying carefully crafted plans for parental policing. There wasn’t a ton of clear guidance in the Good Book, or legitimately helpful guidance in parenting handbooks and vlogs on how to handle that bit. Instead, Cindy relied on her ability to research and consult her network of personal and professional contacts who could lend a hand. The answers she needed would come, and Cindy would provide for her family. This was what drove her to be the best damn parent she could. So even when Logan was hot in his feelings, Cindy could balance the scales with Morgan’s sweetness. It’s said nobody will shatter a mother’s inherent protection of her baby, but few consider the benefit baby returns to mother. The benefit is like receiving a blessing, and that was enough for Cindy to do her part.
“What have you got, sweetheart?” Cindy peered down at Morgan, who was playing with the fire red leaf she had whiffed on grabbing earlier. She must have crouched down and nabbed it off the ground with her Baby Strength grip. She held the leaf with one hand while the other balled up and wandered to her eye, rubbing it for a second as a familiar signal went off in Cindy’s brain. Naptime incoming. Cindy raises her daughter in her arms and relocates her to their Mockingbird stroller, where she can take in the scenery as they made the short stroll across the lawn into the house proper. “Time for a napski, Morgan,” Cindy informs her youngest.
It would be a much better visit to her parents, of course, had Larry been there. It hadn’t exactly been a simple conversation with them as to why they suddenly showed up without him.
“Hey mom, dad, guess what? I decided to challenge what Larry’s been focusing on lately and he and I have hit an impasse. By the way you always said I could move back in if I got tired of him, right? Cashing in that one I guess! Mmkay let’s get inside kids! No need to wait for any follow-up whatsoever…”
Not exactly the kind of remarks someone would nonchalantly throw around while showing up at the parents’ door. Cindy barely got through their mud room before breaking down in tears. She had confidence in herself and was able to work through tough times and all that, but she was human. At the end of the day, Cindy accepted her limits, and she did rely on her support system.
So it would be pretty effing nice if one of the lynchpins of her support system wasn’t attempting effing sabotage.
Cindy entered the house and, shortly after, the staircase leading upstairs to the bedrooms. She removed Morgan and collapsed the stroller for storage in the closet. Holding Morgan in the crook of her left arm, she brought the stroller over to the closet, opened the door, and completed the minor task. One success amid an ever escalating list of tasks was still positive affirmation. As she climbed the staircase to whisk her baby to the crib – after a diaper change – she saw a staircase in her mind, each step being a building block of the past, and the remaining steps lead to further milestones and achievements. But there was no endpoint in sight, an end. Even in the most difficult times, Cindy never wanted this to end. Her family, her marriage.
She swore to protect those invaluable cornerstones of her life. And so she would.
Even if it meant confronting her husband directly about the awful wounds he had received over the past nearly two years since he had returned to wrestling. The use of weapons and plain brutality was so much more accepted than Cindy could have imagined in her wildest nightmares of Larry’s return. She had never seen anything like what Level Up Wrestling presented to its viewership. There were some truly horror like matches, and it felt precisely like Larry was being run through them all, in a grotesque series of tests. Larry would contest that was the doing of Trent Steel, and who could contest it? The coward hid behind his very own curtain of deceit and contempt towards roster members whose checks he signs and whose health he’s got a very vested interest in maintaining.
On top of that, Larry is a man who fulfilled his promise to The Developer that he would be a championship caliber wrestler. He held the Power title with confidence and resolve, Cindy could attest to it herself. She understood her husband and his determination to bring home the top title wherever he goes. He isn’t always successful, but he’s been more often than not, even when it isn’t a good idea. That’s because he knew exactly what the Power title was, as a division, and what it could do to him. He kept Cindy vaguely aware of the division’s rules, and she didn’t think much of it. She didn’t think any wrestling promoters, in Twenty Twenty Two, were looking to take losses the likes of which instituting those perversely violent divisions will all but guarantee. Cindy couldn’t even conceptualize what a ‘Bloodweb’ match would be. After Larry told her – via text! – he would be in that match, she tried to watch the first iteration, between Magdalena Lockheart and that buffoon Bert. She shut it off when her stomach lurched with nausea. But then she turned it back on, knowing that she had an obligation to know what she was up against, and how she could prevent Larry from ending up with massive body trauma.
For the first time in a while, Cindy came up empty. She had already been moved out from Manhattan, and it was as nauseating as watching the ‘Bloodweb’ to contemplate a possible next step down that road. She needed to think in a different perspective. Maybe Long Island was good for that. Cindy felt like she had found a possible answer. It would be painful for Larry, and for herself, and maybe even Logan who supported Larry. Nevertheless, Cindy was determined.
Triforce Heroes would see Larry in a Slamsylvania match. He was getting back into his usual prematch routines, she bet, after he took a few days to move past the loss of the Power title to Vhodka Black. There’s a woman who was made for that division. Cindy had warned Larry before the match that the woman he was facing would be a unique challenge, even with all the madness that company has thrown his way.
He didn’t heed her warning. Okay.
‘Time for warnings is over,’ Cindy thought as she gently closed the door to Morgan’s room. The baby was asleep, and Cindy needed to make a couple calls before she packed their things. ‘No more warnings. It’s time to send a more direct message,’ she contemplated as she pulled out her phone.
She accessed the Hopper app and began checking flight times.
“It’s a girl,” Cindy cried out, lifting an arm to greet the little miracle that had emerged into the world.
Larry was there to hand their newest little bundle to his wife, gently handing her the freshly cleaned and swaddled little princess. After that, it was never a question they would love her as much as their son, Logan. She was perfect.
“Morgan, look!” with an extending of a fire red leaf that had found a way into the greenhouse. Likely, it was Logan coming in a rush to grab a plant to impress the latest girl he was interested in.
Morgan’s face scrunches together as she looks at the leaf. She was trying to decide if the leaf was dangerous, her instincts aware of not seeing this object more than a time or two before. Simultaneously, she wanted to stay on her feet to walk the few steps from the stroller – where she had decided to park herself and pick at flower petals – over to Cindy, sitting on the fountain’s rim. She was already 15 months old. Astonishing. It was one thing to hear the chatter on the local Facebook mom’s group, and another when someone goes through the process the first time. To be just as surprised with the second child’s progression was not something Cindy Winstead felt would strike her as powerfully as the process with the first. It felt like Morgan was developing at lightning speed.
It probably felt fleeting, Cindy surmised, because this would likely be her last child.
Especially with Larry having decided to return to the ring. It isn’t that she opposed the decision. There was an understanding established between them that, once Logan was acclimated to his life and routines, and “wanting some independence for himself” – their coded language for being stricken by puberty – her husband may take a peek at the still cracked open door to his wrestling career. She thought it was healthy for him to have one more run, and see how far the competition had progressed, and whether he could match that with his own re-emergence.
As it turns out, the competition has made mainstream the brutality of professional wrestling.
Cindy watched Morgan make strides to close the distance, and then swiped a pillowy hand at the leaf. She missed slightly and hit my wrist, then retracted her arm and looked at her hand. Blink. Blink. Then she looked to the only person she knew to ask for guidance. Morgan literally needed herself and Larry to survive. That was it. We were the first and only line of protection for this angelic princess. Cindy would never allow anything to happen to her, regardless of the consequences to herself. That went for any of her family. She would never allow them to come to harm without her fighting to protect them with her all.
She had sworn on it in confession and the tone of her conviction had taken Father Dimitry off guard. He made a whimpering like sound when she reached her crescendo: “Father, before you tell me the number of Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s I’ll owe the man upstairs, I have one more thing to confess. On the Bible, on my bond with Christ Himself, and in front of you… I swear one of my family shall not be seriously harmed or worse, without a lethal fight – over my dead body! I’ll do whatever it takes to bring them home safe.”
Poor Father Dimitry may have needed to check his pulse, or his pacemaker, after that day in particular of receiving confessions. A good man with an open ear for others’ plight, even if his guidance wasn’t exactly Heaven sent or insightful. She always thought he would have made a decent politician.
Suddenly, Morgan stumbled into Cindy’s arms, jostling her from thoughts adrift. The littlest Tact was taking a breather, turning and using Cindy’s knees as resting posts. Cindy could relate, although she wasn’t physically tired. She and the kids had been at her parents’ place for several months, and she was fine with their home in Long Island. After all, as her childhood home, it was comfortable. They made the days breezy with the help they provided, and it was good for Morgan to familiarize herself. Logan got free and fresh flowers to flaunt for the young ladies who caught his hormonally driven attention. He was like 90 percent about girls right now, and there wasn’t a guarantee it had hit peak. Not something Cindy ever wanted to address, so she pushed it as Larry’s problem. He was the father and he would earn that distinction – not through his efforts as a businessman, or a wrestler, but as a father.
Which brings us back to Logan, whom Cindy adamantly believed could do better with showing respect and engaging his grandparents. It had been a battle of its own, getting him to come out here, an entire one hour train ride back to New York City. Even if they understood the stage of life he was being consumed by, and they loved seeing him grow up enough to brush off his lazy manners, that didn’t get him in the clear with Mom. Still, it was a point of pride seeing her ‘once upon a time’ Little Guy barreling towards young adulthood. Legally, anyway, if not with grace and intellect. At this point, Cindy found any shortfalls could conveniently be blamed on her husband, and he had yet to give a credible defense for his teenage years being a divergence from what they were witnessing with Logan. There was just a different soundtrack and life-changing amount of technology thrown in.
Corralling social media was fun for every parent that none expected – or knew the best way of handling now that it was here – invading their lives and destroying carefully crafted plans for parental policing. There wasn’t a ton of clear guidance in the Good Book, or legitimately helpful guidance in parenting handbooks and vlogs on how to handle that bit. Instead, Cindy relied on her ability to research and consult her network of personal and professional contacts who could lend a hand. The answers she needed would come, and Cindy would provide for her family. This was what drove her to be the best damn parent she could. So even when Logan was hot in his feelings, Cindy could balance the scales with Morgan’s sweetness. It’s said nobody will shatter a mother’s inherent protection of her baby, but few consider the benefit baby returns to mother. The benefit is like receiving a blessing, and that was enough for Cindy to do her part.
“What have you got, sweetheart?” Cindy peered down at Morgan, who was playing with the fire red leaf she had whiffed on grabbing earlier. She must have crouched down and nabbed it off the ground with her Baby Strength grip. She held the leaf with one hand while the other balled up and wandered to her eye, rubbing it for a second as a familiar signal went off in Cindy’s brain. Naptime incoming. Cindy raises her daughter in her arms and relocates her to their Mockingbird stroller, where she can take in the scenery as they made the short stroll across the lawn into the house proper. “Time for a napski, Morgan,” Cindy informs her youngest.
It would be a much better visit to her parents, of course, had Larry been there. It hadn’t exactly been a simple conversation with them as to why they suddenly showed up without him.
“Hey mom, dad, guess what? I decided to challenge what Larry’s been focusing on lately and he and I have hit an impasse. By the way you always said I could move back in if I got tired of him, right? Cashing in that one I guess! Mmkay let’s get inside kids! No need to wait for any follow-up whatsoever…”
Not exactly the kind of remarks someone would nonchalantly throw around while showing up at the parents’ door. Cindy barely got through their mud room before breaking down in tears. She had confidence in herself and was able to work through tough times and all that, but she was human. At the end of the day, Cindy accepted her limits, and she did rely on her support system.
So it would be pretty effing nice if one of the lynchpins of her support system wasn’t attempting effing sabotage.
Cindy entered the house and, shortly after, the staircase leading upstairs to the bedrooms. She removed Morgan and collapsed the stroller for storage in the closet. Holding Morgan in the crook of her left arm, she brought the stroller over to the closet, opened the door, and completed the minor task. One success amid an ever escalating list of tasks was still positive affirmation. As she climbed the staircase to whisk her baby to the crib – after a diaper change – she saw a staircase in her mind, each step being a building block of the past, and the remaining steps lead to further milestones and achievements. But there was no endpoint in sight, an end. Even in the most difficult times, Cindy never wanted this to end. Her family, her marriage.
She swore to protect those invaluable cornerstones of her life. And so she would.
Even if it meant confronting her husband directly about the awful wounds he had received over the past nearly two years since he had returned to wrestling. The use of weapons and plain brutality was so much more accepted than Cindy could have imagined in her wildest nightmares of Larry’s return. She had never seen anything like what Level Up Wrestling presented to its viewership. There were some truly horror like matches, and it felt precisely like Larry was being run through them all, in a grotesque series of tests. Larry would contest that was the doing of Trent Steel, and who could contest it? The coward hid behind his very own curtain of deceit and contempt towards roster members whose checks he signs and whose health he’s got a very vested interest in maintaining.
On top of that, Larry is a man who fulfilled his promise to The Developer that he would be a championship caliber wrestler. He held the Power title with confidence and resolve, Cindy could attest to it herself. She understood her husband and his determination to bring home the top title wherever he goes. He isn’t always successful, but he’s been more often than not, even when it isn’t a good idea. That’s because he knew exactly what the Power title was, as a division, and what it could do to him. He kept Cindy vaguely aware of the division’s rules, and she didn’t think much of it. She didn’t think any wrestling promoters, in Twenty Twenty Two, were looking to take losses the likes of which instituting those perversely violent divisions will all but guarantee. Cindy couldn’t even conceptualize what a ‘Bloodweb’ match would be. After Larry told her – via text! – he would be in that match, she tried to watch the first iteration, between Magdalena Lockheart and that buffoon Bert. She shut it off when her stomach lurched with nausea. But then she turned it back on, knowing that she had an obligation to know what she was up against, and how she could prevent Larry from ending up with massive body trauma.
For the first time in a while, Cindy came up empty. She had already been moved out from Manhattan, and it was as nauseating as watching the ‘Bloodweb’ to contemplate a possible next step down that road. She needed to think in a different perspective. Maybe Long Island was good for that. Cindy felt like she had found a possible answer. It would be painful for Larry, and for herself, and maybe even Logan who supported Larry. Nevertheless, Cindy was determined.
Triforce Heroes would see Larry in a Slamsylvania match. He was getting back into his usual prematch routines, she bet, after he took a few days to move past the loss of the Power title to Vhodka Black. There’s a woman who was made for that division. Cindy had warned Larry before the match that the woman he was facing would be a unique challenge, even with all the madness that company has thrown his way.
He didn’t heed her warning. Okay.
‘Time for warnings is over,’ Cindy thought as she gently closed the door to Morgan’s room. The baby was asleep, and Cindy needed to make a couple calls before she packed their things. ‘No more warnings. It’s time to send a more direct message,’ she contemplated as she pulled out her phone.
She accessed the Hopper app and began checking flight times.
